


Trixie Belden and the Mystery of the Falling Star

by hhertzof



Series: Madeleine Wheeler, Adventuress [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Trixie Belden Mysteries - Tatham and Kenny
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor visits Sleepyside. Hijinks ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trixie Belden and the Mystery of the Falling Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [castrovalva9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/castrovalva9/gifts).



It started, though no one realized it at the time, with a falling star over Sleepyside. The Bob-Whites spotted it as they tramped home through the snow after getting Christmas trees from the Wheeler's game preserve.

"Make a wish," Brian said, and pointed at the brightly blazing star.

"I wish we could have another adventure." Trixie's wish surprised no one. And in less than twenty-four hours it would come true in ways they had never dreamed.

~~~

"Mom."

Madeleine Wheeler half turned at the sound of her daughter's voice, her hands automatically closing the case and latching it. "Honey." She shouldn't have left the door open; it was a rookie mistake, but at least it was Honey and not one of the servants, or worse yet, Jim.

Honey came in and sat on the bed, laying one hand on the case. "I thought you gave that up."

"I have, mostly." Madeleine could hear the tiredness in her voice as she slumped down on the bed beside Honey. "This isn't a new job, it's the end of a long-term one. I promised when I retired that I'd see this one through."

Honey closed her eyes and leaned against her mother, and was rewarded with an arm wrapped around her shoulders. These moments were rare and she savored them. Too often the world seemed to come between them. "When are you leaving?" Her mother was always leaving.

Her mother rubbed her eyes. "That's the problem. I'm not." She didn't have to say anything more. Honey would understand.

Honey winced. "You're doing an op in Sleepyside. Won't that blow your cover?"

"It's too close to ignore. If all goes according to plan, everything will be okay." But when did that ever happen? And Trixie was a wild card that Madeleine didn't even want to think about right now.

"Is this for Daniel Stuart or for Colonial Varon?" The FBI or UNIT. The former would be reassuring under the circumstances. Well, under any circumstances. At least her mother would be dealing with something human.

Madeleine had no reassurance to give her. "The Colonial- or rather his replacement in the New York branch." She wondered how much she should tell Honey. It might be helpful, should Trixie stumble upon something she shouldn't.

Honey sat up and looked into her mother's eyes. "This is the last one, right?" Barring unexpected circumstances- but that had been part of the bargain.

"I'd like to say yes, but this isn't the reason we moved to Sleepyside. That's an FBI op and has nothing to do with the current case." Madeleine heard Jim's voice in the hall, so she stood and tucked the case out of sight in the nightstand. "And remember, not a word to the others."

Honey's laugh was slightly forced. So this wasn't the end of that long term assignment that her mother had promised would be the last. "They wouldn't believe me anyway." If it hadn't been for the attack on her last boarding school - the one that had left her sick, she might never have known about her mother's double life. But as tempting as it would have been to tell Trixie at any point in the last year and a half, it was balanced by the knowledge that she knew something the other Bob-Whites didn't and by the fact that they wouldn't believe her. She got up and started for the door, before turning back. "So you'll be home for Christmas?"

"It sure looks that way." Madeleine looked at her daughter speculatively. "How would you feel about giving Miss Trask a break and sending her off to spend Christmas with her family? Having a proper family Christmas like the Beldens."

"We could never be like the Beldens, Mom. And I'm not sure I want to be." Honey grinned. "I like your plan."

"What plan?" Jim poked his head in the door. "You do know Trixie will be here soon, so if you want me to drive you, you might want to get a move on."

Madeleine nodded. She hadn't bonded very well with her adopted son so she wasn't sure how he would take this news. "Your dad and I will be home for Christmas, so we thought that we could let Miss Trask have some time off to visit her own family."

Seeing the shock on Jim's face, Honey grabbed his arm before he could say something she shouldn't. "We can talk about this on the way. Didn't you say we were going to be late?"

"I said it was almost time," Jim protested, but he let Honey lead him down the long staircase. "That was a nice thing to do for Miss Trask."

Jim was so predictable, Honey thought. "It wasn't just for Miss Trask. We never have family Christmases and I think Mom's a little intimidated when Miss Trask is here. Like she feels that we're better off if she leaves us to Miss Trask's care." It was only after she finished this speech that she realized that Jim thought it was her idea and not their mother's.

Her brother shrugged and she could tell he didn't care. He'd grown up in a family more like the Beldens and she sometimes thought he'd be happier if she had stepped aside and let him be adopted by Trixie's family. But he'd bonded with their father. She'd be the first to admit that their mother wasn't good at letting people in, but it worried Honey that there didn't seem to be much of a bond between the two of them. Hopefully, time would take care of this.

Deciding it wasn't worth pursuing right now, Honey just followed her brother silently down the stairs, lost in her own thoughts.

~~~~

They weren't the only ones doing their Christmas shopping today, and the closest parking spot they could find was up the hill above the library.

As they walked past the familiar building, they saw a tall blue box, tucked neatly off to one side.

"Where did that come from?" Trixie asked.

Honey stared at it for a moment. If _he_ was here, things must be dire indeed. She mentally sent good thoughts towards her mother, but didn't say a word. Hopefully Honey would be able to keep Trixie and the others out of the way, though knowing Trixie, this was highly unlikely.

"I dunno. Probably one of those art things they're always doing." Jim shrugged, and that was that.

~~~~

"I can't believe your Mom gave Miss Trask the next two weeks off," Trixie said. "How are you going to manage?" She moved about a bit, trying to stay warm while they waited for Jim.

"Mom and Dad will be home through Christmas so they thought it would be nice for Miss Trask to be with her own family," Honey replied, shifting her shopping bag on her arm, and moving off to the side so that she wasn't blocking the door to Wimpy's. "And despite what you think, she's not totally incompetent." The last sentence came out sharper than she intended.

Trixie looked hurt. "I never said-"

Honey bit back a reply. The last thing she wanted was a fight with her best friend. Especially so close to Christmas. "Miss Trask is lovely, but she's not family. I think my Mom just wanted a family Christmas." It was more complicated than that, but presenting it as one of her mother's whims was more likely to go over well with Trixie. She started to say something else, but was bowled over by a blond man in a beige suit dashing up the street.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry." He reached down and helped her up. "Do I know you?" Behind him, a red headed man in a more conventional suit was picking up the packages that had fallen out of her bag. "Thank you, Turlough," he added absently.

"I don't think we've ever met before," He could have been one of her parents' friends, but the suit looked suspiciously like one of the outfits cricket players wore in the games she had seen in England, and she couldn't imagine any of her father's business associates wearing something like that. Honey noticed that Trixie had that investigative look on her face and Honey resigned herself to letting the other girl figure it all out.

Trixie looked suspiciously at the blond man and his friend, but before she could demand answers, an eccentrically dressed young woman came dashing up from the other direction. "Doctor! Ah, there you are. I think I've found something."

"Sarah," he grinned at the woman, "Just a moment." He turned back to look at Honey. "I'm sure we've met before. Martha? Mel? Oh, I know. You're Lenya Hart."

Trixie stared at him. "Her last name is Wheeler," she blurted out.

"But Hart is Mom's last name," Jim had come up behind the party, just as Honey started to wonder what was keeping him. "I've never heard of a Lenya Hart."

Honey bit her lip and stared speculatively at the stranger. Understanding was starting to dawn. "Mom used to be called Lenya. Before she married Dad." She paused, weighing her words, but the blond man jumped in before she had a chance to add anything.

"Wonderful to meet you. I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends, Sarah and Turlough. I knew your mother ages ago. You might say I was a different man back then."

This confirmed what Honey had been thinking, but no need to tell her friends that. What did matter was that the Doctor's presence here couldn't be good news. While the others were introducing themselves, she pulled out her cell phone and tapped a quick message to her mother. The response was equally swift. "Keep him there. I'm coming." Turning her attention back to the others, she established that the woman was "Sarah Jane Smith, journalist" and that the other man was Vislor Turlough, though he seemed to prefer his last name. She didn't blame him.

She wasn't quite sure how it happened, but somehow they ended up all piling into Wimpy's for lunch. On one side of her Sarah and Trixie seemed to be competing to see who could get the most information out of the other. On the other, Turlough and Jim were staring at each other uncomfortably.

And she had ended up facing the Doctor who never seemed to sit still.

"Your mother told you about me, did she?" The Doctor grinned. "How's she doing?"

"Married. Has a kid." She gave him a bright grin. "Adopted Jim," she gestured at her brother, whose hair seemed less vivid next to Turlough's. "We moved here two years ago." It was best to be vague where the Doctor was concerned. Especially when he clearly didn't remember meeting her before.

~~~~

The story she'd told Trixie about why she'd left her last boarding school was only partially true. Yes, she had become ill, but it hadn't had anything to do with being frail or with working too hard. Her boarding school had been attacked by aliens. She still didn't like to think about that time: a jumble of running through corridors, explosions and her mother showing up and helping to save the day. The Doctor had looked different then - brown curls and velvet - but her mother had warned her that he did that sometimes. She'd traveled with one of his incarnations once upon a time and she still did the odd job for UNIT. That Doctor had been traveling with a young blonde woman named Charley and somehow Honey had found herself helping the two of them and her mother fight the aliens. She'd breathed in a little too much of the gas that the aliens had piped into the air ducts and had ended up half-conscious during the denouement, watching her mother distract the aliens while the Doctor did something clever to defeat them.

The next thing she'd remembered was waking up in the school infirmary, with her mother by her side. For a few days she'd pretended to accept her mother's tale of a malfunctioning air conditioning system, but once they said she was strong enough to return home, she confronted her mother with the truth. There had been too many secrets and she was tired of it. It was one thing to pretend not to notice that her mother sometimes had a specific agenda at a party, or that her travels sometimes had a pattern, or that her friends weren't always the "elite" that the well-bred Madeleine Wheeler supposedly preferred, but this was beyond even what she had suspected.

She waited until all the nurse was out of the room. There was always a chance that her mother might continue her pretense, but it was certainly worth a try. Honey looked her mother right in the eye and asked for the truth. "I thought, well, I thought you were a spy or something. I never imagined this."

Her mother had broken eye-contact and focused on her neatly manicured hands. "Well, you were half right." And then her mother had told her the entire story. She'd been recruited by a government agency while she was in college - "mostly passing along information - I had access to places they couldn't get into." It had been on one of those missions that she'd met the Doctor and he had persuaded her to travel with him for a time. When she got back, she'd picked up the threads of her old life. "I've got one more long-term assignment to finish for the government and then I'll be out of it." But this request had been different. "UNIT came to me and said 'Your daughter's in danger.' What was I supposed to do?"

Honey squeezed her hand. She couldn't think of a single thing.

~~~~

Her conversation with the Doctor was interrupted by her phone buzzing. With an apologetic look at the Doctor, she answered, "Hi, Mom. Yes, I'm sitting right across from him." She passed the Doctor the phone, and turned to the conversation on her left, listening with one ear to the one-sided conversation the Doctor was having with her mother.

Ms. Smith "call me Sarah" was inquiring about recent strange incidents in the area and Trixie was telling her about the blue box they had passed by the library, but the journalist shrugged that off and Honey bit back a giggle.

Trixie clearly hadn't noticed because she was falling all over herself trying to come up with odd events but Honey could tell her observations weren't even in the ballpark of what Sarah was looking for. A chill ran down her spine as she remembered the falling star of the night before. She hadn't even thought to tell her mother this morning.

She wasn't usually an impulsive person, but she broke into Trixie's tale of a very suspicious looking stranger who she had seen earlier in Radio Shack while they were looking for a present for Mart. From what Honey could tell, the only reason Trixie had fixated on him was that he had a goatee. "The comet last night. That was strange, wasn't it?"

Sarah looked at her sharply. "Yes, that might be it." She arched an eyebrow at the Doctor, who covered the mouthpiece of the phone, and she said crisply, "They saw it fall."

The Doctor grinned. "Excellent." He returned to the call and repeated what Honey had just said, then looked up at her. "Can you show me where you saw the meteorite last night? We should be able to track down where it landed."

Of course Trixie jumped at that, despite the fact that their food had just come and she had no idea what she was getting herself into. To Honey's relief, her sensible brother paid for their meal and had Wimpy bundle it up so they could take it with them.

As they walked up the hill past the library, Honey refrained from pointing out that they barely knew these people. After all, she _had_ met the Doctor before, and her mother knew him even better.

~~~~

The drive out of town was uneventful, though Jim bristled when Turlough made a snarky comment about the name on the door, and Sarah and Turlough sniped at each other over the seat, making Honey feel as if she were watching Mart and Trixie in ten years time. It was a scary thought and she pushed it out of her mind.

They turned up Glen Road and parked the station wagon in its usual place. They'd been in the woods when they'd seen it fall, so they could get no closer in the car.

Leaving their packages in the trunk, the group hiked into the game preserve, following Jim.

"You do know where you're going, don't you?" Turlough commented sardonically.

Honey could tell he was getting under Jim's skin again, so she replied before her brother could. "We've hiked these trails so often we know them like the backs of our hands." Then in a quieter voice, she said to Turlough, "Must you do that?" It was no use appealing to Jim, who took pride in his hot temper, but Turlough was clearly the sort of person who would continue to needle Jim deliberately.

"But it's so much fun." Turlough smiled at her conspiratorially. "You mean to tell me you've never been tempted?"

"Once or twice," she admitted ruefully. "I try to avoid it though. Not that he holds a grudge, but he never learns."

Turlough started to say something else to her, but was interrupted by Jim. "We were here." He scanned the sky then pointed. "The meteorite was over there, heading due east. It seemed very close."

Before he could say anything else, the Doctor took off in the direction Jim had pointed with Sarah close at his heels.

"More running? Not again," Turlough moaned, but he followed along.

Honey gave him a slight smile. She knew how that felt, tagging along after Trixie. She didn't wait for her friend or her brother but took off after the Doctor. They would make faster progress with a native guide.

The Doctor seemed to realize this and slowed his pace to allow her to catch up to him just as they reached the edge of the woods. From there they followed a twisting track into the depths of the preserve. By now, they could see slight plumes of smoke up ahead in the distance, which faltered and faded as they got closer.

Honey was glad she had chosen to wear jeans that morning and that she was in shape. She wouldn't have liked to make this run during her boarding school years.

Soon they came upon her mother investigating _something_ in the woods. She looked up as she saw them coming. "Ah, Doctor, glad you could make it. We seem to have an invisible ship here."

Honey refused to let herself look at the other's faces. Turlough had already moved to take a closer look at the ship and Honey followed, ignoring the exclamations of shock.

Madeleine Wheeler had not compromised her dress sense. She was wearing a warm coat, neat pair of slacks, and stylish yet practical boots, and yet, the wand she was scanning the ship with was too technical to fit the impression she usually chose to give those around her. She greeted the Doctor with a wry grin. "You've changed."

"You haven't. How are you doing, Lenya?" He strode energetically to her side, pulling a pair of glasses out of his pocket to study the readings she was getting. "Oh, Turlough, Sarah, this is Lenya. She traveled with my prior incarnation."

"I can't tell you how often I tripped over that scarf," Madeleine said cheerfully before returning to her work.

Sarah grinned at this. "You too? There were times I wanted to strangle him with that thing." The two women moved around to the back of the ship, commiserating about the Doctor's foibles and investigating at the same time.

Honey resisted the urge to step on her brother's foot to stop him gaping. Trixie, at least, was more interested in the ship than in seeing Mrs. Wheeler in such an unexpected setting. But instead, Honey followed Turlough, who had figured out how to open the door and get inside. Judging by the damage to the console, the pilot had been lucky to survive the crash.

But Turlough spotted something she didn't and called for the Doctor, and even when she could see the odd object he was holding, Honey had no idea why it would be significant. It looked like one of the fancy remote controls that she'd seen in the store earlier.

The Doctor poked his head in to see what they had found.

Turlough held up the object and said in a tone of disgust, "The Master." This was clearly significant to the Doctor, though it meant nothing to Honey. Some enemy of the Doctor's, she supposed. But before she could ask, they were interrupted by screams from outside.

The Doctor backed out, allowing the other two to emerge- the screams had come from the other side of the craft and Honey recognized one of them as Trixie's voice. The three crept around the side of the ship, Honey staying to the back. Best to let the professionals handle things.

The man from Radio Shack was standing there, a bag with the familiar logo dropped at his feet. He had Jim in his grasp and some sort of weapon aimed at the other three.

Honey watched as the Doctor motioned to Turlough to go back around the other way and sneak up behind the man, who must be the Master, guessing from Turlough's reaction at the sight of him. The Doctor pressed a finger to his lips and indicated that she should stay where she was. And then, to her surprise, he stood and strode into the clearing.

"I should have known," the Doctor said lightly. "The goatee was a dead giveaway."

"Soon you will all be dead." Honey thought that the Master would not be out of place in the panto she had seen in England when she was seven. He had the melodrama down pat. "My plans-" he broke off, staring at Trixie, whose face must have betrayed something. Throwing Jim to the ground, he swung around in time to see Turlough about to smash a rock down on the Master's head. "Drop it, now." The voice was silky-smooth, but the threat was real.

Turlough dropped the rock. Right on the Master's shiny black boot. By that time, Sarah and Honey's mother were halfway across the clearing and it took them no time at all to subdue the man. Jim had the sense to grab for the weapon and throw it into the woods.

In a way, it was an unfair fight. Even if you didn't count Trixie and Honey, it _was_ five against one. But Honey didn't care. It was clear the Master had unpleasant plans, whatever they were. She was willing to trust her Mom and the Doctor on this. The sooner they had him packed up and sent elsewhere, the better.

And that was what they did. The Doctor and his companions quickly repaired the ship with the parts the Master had bought at Radio Shack (and there were plenty of jokes about that), while Jim put his woodsman's training to good use and helped his mother tie up the Master. Honey was glad to note that they seemed to be bonding over this, though of all the possible ways it could have happened, this one had not even crossed her mind.

Honey and Trixie searched for the gun Jim had thrown into the woods. It was only then that Honey realized that, aside from the spaceship, Trixie had not seen much that would require complex explanations. Honey's mother's presence, perhaps, but she thought she could find some vague answer that would satisfy her friend. She'd work out the details with her mother later.

Once all of these tasks were finished, the Doctor programmed a course into the Master's ship that would take him far away from Earth. The weapon he took with him, saying that he would disassemble it once he got back to the TARDIS. Honey's mother offered to drive the three of them back into town in a way that was a clear dismissal of the Bob-Whites, ignoring the Doctor's hints that they should come with him, even though it wasn't quite clear where he planned to take them.

They said goodbye at the car, and Honey was glad to see that Jim had gotten over his earlier irritation and was willing to shake Turlough's hand.

The Doctor, as usual, was effusive, shaking everyone's hand heartily and hinting once again that they should come with him. Honey's mother put an end to that with a decisive "No."

She did promise to stay in touch with Sarah, once the other woman got back to Earth. Or something. Honey couldn't quite follow the conversation which seemed to involve, well, time travel.

"Perhaps next time I'll actually get a chance to hit something with a rock," Turlough said as he got into the car. "I seem to be two-nil down so far." The Doctor turned to give him a dark look, but Sarah and Madeleine just laughed.

The three Bob-Whites stood and watched until the car was out of sight and Trixie sighed. "The others are never going to believe this. I wonder where the spaceship came from."

"Some prototype of the government's, I suppose," Jim replied, thoughtfully. "It looked like that guy was trying to steal it. We may never get the full story. To Honey's relief, Trixie seemed to accept this. "But the real question is, what was Mom doing there?"

Trixie stared at him, and Honey could almost see the gears turning in her friend's head.

"Perhaps, that's a mystery for later," Trixie said cheerfully. "I'm sure there must be _some_ logical explanation. It's not as though Madeleine Wheeler is an under cover agent for a mysterious government agency. Maybe she just stumbled on the crash while taking a walk."

As they walked back to the house, Honey listened to the ever more logical and mundane reasons they came up with for her mother's behavior. At this rate, they would convince themselves without any help from her, which suited her just fine. It wasn't as though they'd believe the truth.


End file.
